The invention provides an elementary transcendental function operation method based on a floating point arithmetic unit and a coprocessor for the method. According to the method, a coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC) algorithm is decomposed into a function operation control part and a floating point calculation part; the function operation control part is used for finishing an operation control function of the CORDIC algorithm; and the floating point calculation supports absolute value solution, addition / subtraction, multiplication, division, evolution and comparison operation of floating point number, and a general register used in the floating point calculation can be read and written by a function operation control module. A special mathematical function calculation component is redesigned as required in the conventional method, so the conventional method is complex in control and structure and high in consumption of hardware resources. By adding the function operation control module with a simple structure, transcendental function operation is realized by using the existing floating point operation instruction based on the existing floating point arithmetic unit; and the function operation control module is simple in structure and easy to implement and apply, and can support calculation of trigonometric and anti-trigonometric functions, hyperbolic function, exponential function and logarithmic function.